Association for Middle Level Education

Association for Middle Level Education

Browse by Topic: Bullying/School Safety

How parents and educators can help students cope with social distancing

While on a socially distanced walk with my husband today, we heard a cacophony of caw-caws. My husband turned to me to ask, “What do you call a group of crows? A gaggle? A flock?” Without hesitation, I...

Activities that bring perspective, invite empathy, and build social skills

"I can't believe what happened," Janine* said. Her daughter Greta's best friend overheard two girls calling her a stuck-up loser, so she secretly videotaped their conversation and texted Greta the evidence. Janine was...

A rigorous social and emotional learning program helps students tackle community challenges

As national conversations about immigration, cybersecurity, under-employment, artificial intelligence, and the rapid transformation of our workplace are debated, a daunting question looms: how are we going to prepare...

Practicing gratitude is one tool that can help students deal with anxiety, depression, and loneliness

iGen, a term used by generational researcher Jean M. Twenge (2017), is used to describe children born between 1995 and 2012. In her book, Twenge analyzed large data sets to understand the struggles and hopes of this...

Classroom strategies for using literature to help students with daily struggles

It didn't take long to realize Marissa was not going to be focused on the day's lesson. Shortly after arriving in class, she took her seat, placed her head in her hands, and started crying. She shared that her best...

One school's approach to rethinking advisory

From our first days on campus, it was clear that the school had once been committed to an advisory program. There were dusty advisory binders in the corners of classrooms, and many teachers remained passionate about...

10 ways to develop middle schooler's social-emotional skills

Hanna's adoption was never a secret. It was a fact of life, like her black hair and her fear of spiders. She didn't give it a lot of thought until she turned 13. At the beginning of seventh grade, she desperately...

Watching for even the small details can create a responsive culture that meets the social, emotional, and academic needs of students

I bet you didn't know that you signed up to be a triage nurse now did you? Meeting the social, emotional, and academic needs of middle school students is a lot like working the triage desk in a busy hospital. The...

Building college and career readiness by focusing on effort and behavior

Life skills, also known as behavior skills, are the base on which academic and technical skills are built. In the work world, the biggest issue is not technical skill in employees, rather it's behavior skills. People...

This is part 4 in "Mentor Me" questions about Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). There are five components of SEL: self-awareness, responsible decision-making, relationship skills, social awareness, and...